This report is focused around Lost and Found data using the intakes and outcomes data received for 2020 and 2021. Its goal is to reflect everything we could learn about L&F from the available data, make sure the numbers we see make sense, and highlight things that would be useful to show but some/all data required for them are missing.

Report Structure

  1. KPIs: data points that indicate how good the shelter is doing on on L&F. They have numeric goals associated with them.
  2. Supporting data: data points that aren’t a goal themselves but serve as a proxy for improving a goal. For example, the method of RTH is not a performance indicator, but it helps identifying how RTHs take place. The number of strays found per ZIP code is not a metric to improve, but it shows where most strays are coming from to guide resource allocation.
  3. Data status: the state of the data received from the shelter, highlighting missing pieces and potential areas for improvement.
  4. Extra metrics: some ideas for additional L&F metrics and the data points they require.

Scroll down or use the table of contents on the left to navigate throughout the document. Most sections contain multiple tabs showing different facets of a data type. Most plots are interactive, meaning they include tooltips and allow hiding and showing parts and zooming in and out. If something went wrong, look for the house icon in the top right corner of each figure to reset.

KPIs

Yearly RTH Rates by Species

This section provides an overview of the RTH rate per year divided by species. RTH Rate is calculated as the portion of returned animals that came in as strays out of stray animals.

CCP and TNR cats were excluded (based on the intake subtype field), and all animals in the age group Unweaned were excluded as well.

Overall RTH Rate

Species Year Strays RTH_Count RTH_Rate
Cat 2020 312 5 1.6%
Cat 2021 581 13 2.24%
Cat 2022 87 1 1.15%
Dog 2020 715 232 32.45%
Dog 2021 2582 848 32.84%
Dog 2022 403 121 30.02%
Other 2021 57 5 8.77%

RTH Rate by Subtype (Dogs)

This section breaks dog RTH rate by the most common intake subtypes.

While Law Enforcement intakes are expected to be higher (known owner), it is interesting to note that field intakes (ACO) have higher RTH rates than public drop offs across all three years.

RTH Over Time

These three time series show the RTH rate per month, to show whether there were times with particularly high or low rates as well as the overall trajectory.

The RTH rate is fairly stable (which is positive in light of the increasing intake volume seen below), with a small dip around November-December of both 2020 and 2021. This is fairly atypical, as many other shelters actually show higher RTH rates around the turn of the year.

Stray Intakes

This section shows the number of stray intakes over time, as well as the breakdown of strays by field/shelter intake.

Stray Intakes by Month

Stray Intake Subtypes

Money Saved by RTH

This could be another useful metrics to reflect the benefits of RTH over other outcome types. It takes into account three components:

  1. The number of stray intakes with RTH outcome.
  2. The daily cost of care.
  3. The average difference in length of stay (in days) between strays with RTH outcomes and all other strays. This is shown in the table below – roughly 29 days for dogs and 40 for cats.

As an example, there were 848 stray dos who got RTH in 2021. Assuming 30$ cost of daily care per dog, and given the length-of-stay differences, We can estimate that return-to-homes for dogs saved CAC \(848*30*29=\$737,760\) in costs of care.

Of course, that is a pretty basic calculation that is meant to demonstrate the difference between these outcomes, even if the budget did not actually change by this amount as a result of achieving RTH outcomes.

Data Note: the length of stay seems higher than average – does this surpise you? In case the averages were high because of a few outliers we looked at the median, but it too is higher than usual.

Species Outcome Count Average_Length_Of_Stay Median_Length_Of_Stay
Cat Other Outcomes 622 51.72 40
Cat RTO 19 1.37 1
Dog Other Outcomes 1937 41.64 29
Dog RTO 1201 1.83 1

Supporting Data

Stray Intake and RTH By Found Location

The following maps show stray intake and RTH rate by Census tracts to highlight geographical patterns. The first and second tab are similar to previous metrics; the third tab, RTH Gap, shows the number of strays who were not returned home per Census tract

The data in this section includes stray dogs for which found addresses were present and workable, meaning they had a street number or an intersection (as opposed to just a street name). Unfortunately, out of ~6000 stray animals, after removing ~150 with the shelter address, there were 1000 additional animals with address that could not be mapped. This was primarily due to only using a street name rather than a name and number or an intersection.

After this filtering, the data below (number of strays, rate of RTH, RTH gap) is shown for 2932 stray dogs of which 991 were RTHs. The next section maps 1819 cats.

Stray Intake

RTH Rate

Generally speaking, lower-intake areas have higher rates here, which is similar to other communities.

RTH Gap

This combines the other two tabs to highlight where most additional RTH potential exists. Since RTH rates were generally higher in lower intake areas, the gaps highlight the same areas shown in the stray intake map and driven primarily by higher intake volumes than a particularly low RTH rate in a given area.

Top 10 Found Locations

Here’s a sneak peak into the top 10 found locations plotted above, to make sure they make sense to you.

Found.Location Count
4701 Montgomery Road Norwood OH 15
10245 Winton Road Springfield Township OH 14
1130 Compton Road Springfield Township OH 10
1203 West Kemper Road Forest Park OH 9
22 Poplar Street Elmwood Place OH 8
3964 Red Bank Road Fairfax OH 8
4725 Springdale Road Colerain Township OH 8
Hamilton Avenue and Galbraith Road Mt. Healthy OH 8
5083 Colerain Avenue Mt. Airy OH 7
600 Grove Avenue Wyoming OH 7

Stray Intake by Found Location - Cats

Cat Stray Intake Map

This is similar to the stray intake map above, but for 1819 stray cats. Since only 96 of those were RTH, there is no point in mapping those across town.

Top 10 Found Locations

Here’s a sneak peak into the top 10 found locations plotted above, to make sure they make sense to you.

Found.Location Count
4549 Schinkal Road Miami Heights OH 30
4346 Vine Street St. Bernard OH 13
1115 Rosemont Avenue Price Hill OH 11
170 Richardson Place Saylor Park OH 8
227 Country Trace Avenue Harrison OH 8
310 South State Street Harrison OH 8
54 Euclid Avenue Wyoming OH 8
Rose Lane and Glensprings Drive Springdale OH 8
1413 Bellwood Drive Loveland OH 7
2760 West Galbraith Road Colerain Township OH 7

Census Data

This map shows different demogrpahic information for Hamilton County.

Data Status

  1. Found location was missing or non-usuable (primarily because only a street name was inserted -- Hoffner street, Harrison, Hamilton, Madison, Reading Road -- without a number or an intersection) for about 1000 out of 6000 stray intakes. If ZIP codes are tracked more regularly, we could use them as well (they are not in the data we got so far), but for a map based on exact locations the main solution is improving data entry.

  2. Intake subtype for strays has multiple values assigned to less than 20 animals, which could be removed to simplify or thought through again. It seems like a lot of information is condensed into it, e.g. an indication of TNR/CCP and a specificity of ‘TNR with Cat Has Microchip’.

  3. We were not sure how to count the Law Enforcement category under stray, which we would usually classify as ‘seizure/confiscate’ as opposed to stray.

Extra Metrics

Other things we could show if we had the data for it:

  1. Exact distances traveled by lost dogs from home, if home address was collected for successful RTH.
  2. Prevalence of microchips across town (for example, are there areas from which more animals come in without chips?) and the RTH rates for animals found with/without chips, if a scan result upon intake (yes/no microchip) is documented.
  3. Number of public found reports and successful RTH by public (if this data is accessible to the shelter).

Thanks for reading through, and we’re looking forward to talking through it and thinking about more ways to make this data useful for you.